WASHINGTON, DC - The Campaign Finance Institute is introducing a new resource on its web site to let reporters, students and all interested citizens follow the role of money in the key House and Senate election races that will determine which party controls Congress. The new data can be reached on the Key Races 2000 page on CFI;s Web site, www.CFInst.org. In announcing the new site, the Campaign Finance Institute's (CFI) executive director, Michael Malbin, explained its purpose. "We developed this website to help bring a public focus on the same races that are getting all the attention behind the scenes from the political pros."

While the general public has been focused on the presidency, politically informed observers are also paying close attention to the congressional elections. For the first time in 48 years, majority control over the House, Senate and Presidency are all realistically in play. But the attention is not on the whole Congress. Control will probably turn on fewer than two dozen House seats and ten or fifteen in the Senate.

With so much at stake, the battle for control has become fueled by well-focused money. In the House races that were rated as tossups by Congressional Quarterly or the Cook Reports, the average contestant has already raised more than $1 million dollars. That is well ahead of the1998 pace for comparable contests, and about twice as much as the amount raised by candidates in close-races during the full cycles of 1990 through 1994.

And candidate money is only part of the story. In race after race, researchers have found solid evidence that political parties and interest groups are spending more to influence the election than the candidates are spending themselves. According to Anthony Corrado, CFI's co-chair, the Congressional party campaign committees at mid-year had raised more than three times as much soft money by as they did in 1998. Interest group issue advertising is not even disclosed, so the overall situation has become tough for even the most knowledgeable of insiders to follow.

The web pages will publish the candidates' receipts and expenditures, with receipts broken out for non-party committees, parties, leadership PACs and self-funding. However, Malbin explained, the web site will go further than the candidate's FEC reports. Because we know that the candidates' reports do not include soft money, we try to give users easy access to news articles and other information about undisclosed activities, organized by House district or Senate race. The sites for each individual race will also provide hot links to campaign finance information about the district from the Federal Election Commission, FEC Info and the Center for Responsive Politics, as well as background information about the district or state, and links to the candidates' own web sites.

The Campaign Finance Institute was created to address campaign finance issues in a manner that reaches across traditional lines of debate through broad programs of research, deliberation and public education. Key Races 2000 is one of many products and activities planned by CFI over the coming months to bring current information, analysis and discussion before the public.